


Burnt Offerings

by cowgirlfromhell



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 07:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowgirlfromhell/pseuds/cowgirlfromhell
Summary: Ellen thinks Bobby's headed down the suicide highway," Sam said sliding into his chair."He's paid his tab and returned everything he's ever borrowed from her. She thinks he's putting his affairs in order.





	1. Chapter 1

Sam and Dean Winchester had been traveling for hours, heading in the general direction of Nebraska when Sam's cell phone rang. Pulling it from his jeans pocket he checked the caller id and frowned. "It's Ellen," he said apprehensively, wondering when the last time was that he'd gotten a call from Ellen Harvelle that hadn't eventually turned everything to total chaos and crap.

Dean snorted; glad he was no longer on Ellen's phone tree. She refused to talk to him at all if she could avoid it and when she found it couldn't be avoided, she tried to break his balls.

The phone continued to ring and Sam continued to hold it loosely in his hand.

"Answer it," Dean suggested, "It might not be anything shitty for a change."

"Yeah, like Ellen calls just to say 'hey'." Capitulating to the incessant ringing, Sam finally answered. "Hello," he said, listened intently until she was done, then snapped the phone shut. He'd never gotten a word in edgewise and rubbed his forehead, the beginnings of a headache rearing its ugly head.

"Well? Is she OK?" Dean asked smirking smugly, slowing the Impala down as they came up behind a semi.

"Yeah, but... Oh God, Oh God, Oh God." Sam's legs jerked out and knocked Dean's foot off the accelerator as pain sliced through his brain. When he cried out his brother knew immediately what was happening and steered the Impala onto the shoulder and brought it to a skidding halt.

"Sammy, hold on," he shouted as his brother pitched forward. Dean never knew how the visions would affect his brother but if he could have taken them on himself to spare Sam, he would have. Well, maybe not all of them; especially not this one because when he grabbed Sam's shoulders and pulled him back into an upright position, blood poured from both nostrils. "Aw crap, Sammy. You hit the dash?"

The pain in his head lessened and Sam blinked owlishly. "Don't think so," he breathed out, "It just started bleeding. Fuck!" Sam knew the visions were becoming, if not more frequent, certainly more intense and physically debilitating. He tilted his head back, blood running down the back of his throat, the taste and consistency nauseating and decided he would rather incur Dean's wrath for bleeding all over the car than to gut it.

"Bleed on my seat and die," Dean threatened while reaching into the back seat to snag a box of tissues.

"I'll chance it," Sam retorted miserably.

Jamming his hand into the box, Dean grabbed a fistful and pressed it against Sam's face almost smothering him, "Pinch your nose, that'll stop it." Dean remembered his dad telling him to do the same thing when a werewolf had reared up and broken his nose. He'd pinched the hell out of it; stopping the bleeding and ultimately snapping the displaced cartilage back into place, leaving his nose straight and his visage "still as handsome as ever," he thought laughingly, truly thankful he wasn't even more scarred up than he was. His battle scars were just enough to peak a girl's interest and not gross her out but he knew it only took one misstep on a hunt to go from beauty to a beast.

They sat in silence for a short while, Sam breathing noisily through his mouth, his nausea his main concern. The pain in his head had subsided but the whole episode had left his stomach in rough shape. It seemed his nosebleed was just spontaneous gushing brought on by his gift, or his curse, depending on how one looked at it. Half empty, half full, gift, curse, tomato, tomato it still sucked to be Sam when he was having a vision.

"Well, what'd you see this time? You and me in a resort in Mexico covered in baby oil and hot babes?"

Sam only wished. "It was a woman. Dean, she was so sad and so angry at the same time. There was utter chaos surrounding her, gunshots and screaming. God, the screaming! And the gunshots, automatic weapons fire," he said wiping more blood from his face.

"Do you know who she is? Where she might be? Is it Ellen?"

"Slow down, my head's still spinning," Sam complained then continued, "Not Ellen, not Caucasian. Oriental, dressed in black pants and a long white top." He paused to think for a minute then added, "Like the pictures in dad's trunk."

"Vietnamese," Dean said reaching back into his memories, taking care not to grab one with thorns. This one was one of the better ones.

Sam had mixed emotions recalling the day they were bored out of their skulls and had picked the lock on John Winchester's old footlocker. They had delved deep into his past, rifling through the exotic photographs, reading his letters home. They'd also learned their father had been a war hero; as a number of dark blue hinged boxes containing shiny tokens of his country's gratitude were tucked deep down in the trunk. He had eventually spilled the beans about the two of them snooping and, though John hadn't been angry exactly, the footlocker had disappeared and their dad had been even more remote than usual. Sam had been so fraught with anxiety that he'd actually thrown up much to his chagrin and much to Dean's delight...until John had ordered Dean to clean up the mess.

"He never talked about it, the war," Sam said massaging his forehead once again.

"Why would he?" Dean asked understanding fully the meaning of shell-shocked, "He only had a few of years of peace before he was sucked back into another war...after Mom." The yellow-eyed demon had forced John Winchester back into a different though just as deadly fray, conscripting not only the father but eventually the sons.

"It must have been hard to spend so much of his life fighting," Sam said without thought. He stopped talking and looked at Dean whose eyes so often of late held the thousand-yard stare and what? Should he apologize for their father's bloody legacy? A legacy they both now carried on but that had been foisted on Dean at a very young age, an age where he couldn't say 'no he didn't want to go to war, that he just wanted to be a kid'. Yeah, maybe he would try. "Dean, I..."

"It's okay, Sammy. I wouldn't have had it any other way."

"Yeah, sure bro," Sam thought knowing full well what Dean had given up as a child, "If I was eight, I'd rather play whack a troll for real and be scared shitless all the time than play whack a mole in an arcade any day."

Dean turned away from Sam's piteous look and stared out his window. The sun was starting its downward arc and as the poem read: The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. He had promises to keep, promises to his father, promises to Sam. He turned back to his brother and asked, "You okay, now?" his concern quickly turning to disgust. Totally grossed out by the blood soaked glob of tissue Sam still held up to his nose, his lip curled and he threatened, "Dude, if you leave that in my car, I'm gonna cripple you."

Sam checked his nose in the rear view mirror. It had finally stopped bleeding and he smiled weakly. Grabbing an empty fast food bag, he stuffing the bloody mess into it then, after fishing in the glove box for a handi-wipe, cleaned his face and hands, "I'm good to go." But where? he wondered. He had no idea who the woman in his vision was but since the war had been over for decades, he was pretty sure she wasn't a living, breathing woman and until he could get a decent meal, a good night's sleep and a clue, he would put her out of his mind. Then he remembered the phone call. "Before I spazzed out, Ellen said we need to get to Bobby's. She says something's not right with him."

"How could she tell? Bobby isn't your everyday run of the mill auto mechanic."

"She said he came in and paid his tab...in full."

Without a second thought, Dean said, "Roadhouse it is," and slipped the Impala into gear and moved back onto the blacktop.


	2. Chapter 2

Harvelle's Roadhouse was not a jumping joint. Too far off the beaten path and just plain creepy, only three people were inside in addition to Ellen, the owner. Her daughter Jo was still M.I.A. and Ellen had found no need to hire a replacement so she waited on the two unsmiling men sitting at the bar and the tall, dark haired woman sitting alone at one of the tables by herself.

Dean checked out the brunette as soon as he came through the door and gave her his best satisfaction guaren-fucking-teed smile before stepping up to the bar to order a beer and a cheeseburger from a scowling Ellen. But evidently his charm was lost on them both as daggers flew from Ellen's eyes aimed straight at his heart and the woman at the table picked up her gear and slowly walked out the door favoring her right leg as she went. Too bad, he thought. It would have been nice to talk to someone other than Sam while he waited for Ellen to deliver his cheeseburger, which would undoubtedly come with a side of reproach and a guiltshake. He sat at the woman's vacated table to wait while Sam talked animatedly to Ellen then joined him, setting two more beers down on the table.

"Ellen thinks Bobby's headed down the suicide highway," Sam said sliding into his chair and Dean nearly choked on his beer.

He'd never known anyone quite as centered as Bobby Singer in this off-kilter world. Sure the man was an eccentric but look what he did for fun. Was that any reason to think he was going to off himself? "That's crap, Sammy," he spit out, "What makes her think that?"

"He's paid his tab and returned everything he's ever borrowed from her. She thinks he's putting his affairs in order." Dean's lips pursed skeptically but before he could insist again that it was crapola, Sam added, "Oh yeah, and there's that death wish thing." Dean looked at his brother, his eyes questioning.

"It seems he invited an old friend into his home, a friend he knew had been bitten by a werewolf and he couldn't bring himself to kill the poor bastard when he turned. The hunter who'd originally been chasing the lycaon showed up in the nick of time."

"So he couldn't kill him. You said it was an old friend."

"The hunter said Bobby just dropped his weapon and put out his arms as if inviting the beast to kill him."

Well, that sure as hell sounded like a death wish but why would Bobby want to commit suicide by werewolf? They needed to find out before it was too late because he wasn't sure he could take another death in "the family."

Ellen, who had already morphed into the epitome of a wicked stepmother, came up to the table and set Sam's plate in front of him.

She practically tossed Dean's across the table to him and he said acidly, "I'm glad I didn't order soup."

"There's a diner about two hundred and fifty miles south of here," she told him turning on her heel.

"Who was the woman sitting here?" Dean asked quickly before she could move away.

Ellen turned back to look at him and said, "A pretty smart cookie, I'm guessing, if she didn't fall for that come hither look you gave her when you came in."

Sam laughed. He had often wanted to poke a pin in his brother's head or shoot him with a nail gun to deflate his oversized ego and savored the moment as Ellen did it with just a sharp tongue.

"I find it hard to believe, too?" Dean replied genuinely surprised that the woman had just gotten up and walked out.

He had such a pathetic look on his face that Ellen felt sorry for him for a moment and told him, "I don't know who she is and neither do the others. They do think she's some kind of a hunter, though. She started coming in here a little over a week ago, just sitting at the same table, occasionally ordering food but mostly just watching, waiting. If you hurry you may be able to catch up with her. Ellen looked pointed at him and Dean suddenly felt the need to check himself for oozing blood as she continued to blame him for Jo's disappearance. It was not his fault that Jo was gone. Well, maybe he did have something to do with the cluster fuck that had split up mother and daughter but most of the events had been set into motion years before. He could though, take a hint when it was dropped on his head like an anvil, and told Sam that they should leave for Bobby's as soon as they finished eating and paid Ellen for the food and that a pound of his flesh.


	3. Chapter 3

Bobby Singer squatted in the darkness among the trees and rusted hulks of long dead cars, a bonfire blazing zestfully before him, sparks spinning in a heat created vortex, then swirling upward into the night sky. Dressed in a down vest, long sleeved plaid shirt and jeans, the winter clothing was no protection against the bitter South Dakota winter and he was freezing but couldn't bring himself to go inside so he stayed close to the flames, his face, lit by the fire's light, a little older, his beard a little grayer. Sam and Dean made their way cautiously toward him, snow crunching beneath their boots as Bobby, without ever looking up, pulled a military issued Colt Combat Commander 45 from his pocket, pointed it in their direction and thumbed back the hammer.

"Whoa Bobby, it's me, Sam, Sam Winchester."

"Dean with you?" Bobby asked, still staring into the fire, not really caring but feeling he should be semi-polite. He had nothing against Sam or Dean Winchester but company was the last thing he wanted.

"I'm here, Bobby," Dean let him know and he lowered the gun, released the hammer and stuffed it back into a pocket but didn't turn to acknowledge either of them, he just returned to whatever he'd been doing before they'd interrupted him.

As they came closer Dean spotted a pile of what appeared to be money at Bobby's feet and watched as he picked up a stack of bills and tossed them into the flames. When he reached to pick up more, Dean grabbed his arm.

"Don't," Bobby commanded flatly, the futility of his actions clear to him but still not able to stop what he had been doing for the better part of the evening.

"Jesus Bobby, that's cash," Dean said as the money sailed into the fire.

Sam picked up a handful of bills; examined them and much to Dean's dismay, threw them onto the fire as well where they flared up nicely and so did Dean.

"Are you out of your friggin' minds? Do you have any idea how many credit card apps I have to fill out to get this kind of scratch?"

Sam, the devil on his shoulder urging him on, looked innocently at Dean and sent another handful of the bills into the flames and smiled. His brother's anxiety level kicked up another notch but before Dean could pummel the crap out of him, he held one out for him to see in the fire's light. "It's votive money, worthless except to the Hearth Gods, right Bobby?" Sam said with a not so sheepish grin.

"Apparently it's worthless to them, too," Bobby spat out, rising up and stretching, the lateness of the hour, the cold and his age getting the better of him.  
He turned and walked back to his cabin, stopping at the door to see if the two of them followed and said over his shoulder, "How about a beer?" and they followed in silence, each wondering how or even if, the burnt offerings played into Ellen's concerns and Sam's vision.

Bobby's house was sparsely furnished but filled to the brim with piles of clutter representing his business, his life and his avocation, though hunting demons was hardly a relaxing hobby. The room was toasty warm and curiously, stank of incense and of limes and when Dean scuffed his feet; dust motes rose into the air and eventually settled back down to the floor.

"You're cleaning lady quit?" he called out as Bobby headed into the kitchen to get the beers.

"Didn't want to sweep out any good luck," Bobby called from around the corner, his head stuck in the refrigerator.

"Or any hantavirus," Dean said under his breath throwing his leather jacket over the back of a chair. He continued to roam around the room wondering what was so different from the last time he'd been there.In the kitchen Bobby pulled three green bottles of Rolling Rock from the refrigerator as Sam walked in and stared at the twenty or so water filled, store bought, plastic jugs that lined the counter and asked "Your plumbing effed up?"

"If you want water, use the tap," Bobby replied shortly.

Taking one of the pro-offered beers, Sam realized Bobby had given him a non-answer concerning the water and returned to the living room, searching for a place to sit among the piles. One pile, covering a beat-to-shit old couch against one wall, caught Sam's eye. It was a collection of paper goods. Paper clothes, red paper fish, multi colored paper flowers, camo painted paper military items, like cannons and tanks and more green votive money. Dean had already studied the pile and gave Sam a 'the fuck?' look and Sam just shrugged.

Bobby noticed the exchange and handed Dean his beer on his way to his desk. He sat heavily in the wheeled, oak chair and it creaked with age, the way he felt he did himself if one listened hard enough. Bobby sighed, the melancholia that had come upon him a couple of weeks earlier, growing heavier. "What can I do for you boys?" he asked staring at his beer but making no move to drink it.

Sam took a swallow of his before speaking, "Ellen asked us to look in on you."

"That right?" He should have known. Ellen was the closest thing he had to a friend and she would have called the Winchester boys, well, Sam at least, after his last meeting with her. He would have done the same had it been her coming to his salvage yard to settle up after all these years, to effectively cut off all ties.

"Yeah, she's kind of worried about you. Said you came in and paid your tab," Sam continued.

"The tab you've been running since '98," Dean added, watching for any change in Bobby's demeanor.

But there wasn't any as Bobby just looked him in the eye and said, "I just figured it was time. I can't be leaching off of Ellen forever."

"You know she doesn't care, she just wants to see you from time to time, to know you're safe."

"I'm safe enough, Sam," he assured him.

"She also said you returned everything you've ever borrowed from her," Dean added wondering why Bobby was being so defensive and evasive.

"So, I'm a responsible son of a bitch. That a crime?"

Sam looked around the room, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to stand up at the strangeness of it all.

"Anyway, I'm glad you two stopped by. I've got something for you," Bobby told them pointing to a footlocker in front of the desk.

Dean walked over and squatted down. He set his beer on the floor and lifted the lid of the large metal box. Inside was a veritable arsenal; weapons of all kinds, rifles, shotguns and handguns, knives and swords, sharp and wicked looking, even a high tech wrist rocket that Dean coveted immediately and then it hit him. He took a quick look around the room and noticed that it had been stripped of every weapon that had ever hung on the walls or resided in the gun racks.

"I want you two to have 'em, I'm retiring."

"What's goin' on, Bobby?" Dean demanded knowing that if they took the weapons Bobby would be pretty much defenseless against any sort of attack, demon or otherwise.

"You can't really retire from hunting, Bobby," Sam pointed out knowing that demons have long memories and give new meaning to networking, "The demons, know you, hate you."

"All taken care of," he said simply.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ignoring Sam's question Bobby asked, "You want this stuff or not?"

Dean looked to Sam for an answer and noticed the rivulet of sweat dripping down the side of his brother's face and his clenched jaw.

"What is it, Sammy?"

It was a pain like an awl being shoved through his eye and Sam grabbed his head, doubled over and fell to his knees.

"Christ, not again," Dean swore.

"What's wrong with him?" Bobby demanded, standing so quickly that his beer toppled over.

"It's OK, Bobby," Dean assured him squatting down next to his brother, holding him up through the throws of another seizure.

Another pain, sharper than the first if possible, lanced through his head and Sam cried out.

Bobby watched cautiously and deciding there was nothing demonic about the youngest Winchester's pain, asked, "What can I do?"

"He'll be okay," Dean said, "He just might throw up when he done or bleed from various orifices."

Bobby was startled by Dean's indifference concerning bleeding orifices and ran to the couch and with a sweep of his arm, cleared it off. "Put him here."

Dean helped Sam to his feet and over to the couch, where he laid down, throwing an arm over his eyes, taking in great gasps of air and letting them out slowly.

Bobby got him a wet cloth from the kitchen and placed it on his forehead. He wanted to help if he could because above all, he loved the boys, but in his own way. Dean was too much like himelf for them to have formed a close attachment. They were both self assured but at the same time barricaded themselves behind walls of self protective bullshit and bull headed as hell when pressed for any reason, never letting anyone other than family get too close. Looking at Dean was like seeing himself twenty years ago and if he was smart, Dean would look at him and see himself twenty years down the line and take heed. And Sam, Sam was the complete opposite of him and he had a real affection for John's younger son and like Dean, felt the need to watch out for him, to protect him.

"How long's he been like this?"

"A few months," Dean told him.

"He seen a doctor?"

"It's nothing like that. He has...visions."

Bobby looked at the young man lying on his couch and grew angry. Why wasn't John Winchester here for this, for his boys? Why wasn't he here with him, to help him sort out what was happening to him? Maybe Sam was the key?

"What'd you see, Sammy" he asked cautiously, fearing the answer would have something to do with fire and with himself.

"Nothing," Sam whispered, "It's just a mother of a headache," and Bobby knew he was lying, as did Dean.

Whatever Sam had seen, it had scared him, but not as much as his refusal to divulge whatever it was scared the hell out of Bobby and he took a step back from the two of them and said, "I'm going back out to the fire. You two stay as long as you need, then take the hardware and go."

"No!" Sam sat up his stomach roiling, threatening to expel his Carl's Jr. Jalapeno gut burger, "You need to stay in the house."

"Why?"

"Just trust me," Sam begged him.

"What'd you see, Sammy? If it has something to do with Bobby he has a right to know."

"I don't know if it is about Bobby. I saw the woman again."

"What woman?" Bobby asked him. It was like pulling teeth.

"A Vietnamese woman."

Bobby's face blanched but recovering quickly, he simply asked, "You boys want another beer?"

Relieved that Bobby had changed his mind about kicking them out and always up for another beer, Dean nodded while Sam laid back on the couch, waiting for his stomach to settle.

Retrieving the beers, Bobby offered them to the brothers before opening a desk drawer and rummaging fairly deeply into it. He pulled out a battered old photograph and handed it to Sam, who looked at it but couldn't be sure if it was the woman of his visions.

"I'm sorry Bobby, but she's just not sharp in my vision, kind of faded out," he explained and Dean, seeing the frustration on both men's faces, changed the subject.

"Did you know Dad when you were over there?" he asked and Bobby shook his head.

He knew John Winchester had never talked to his sons much other than to bark orders, knew for sure he'd never answered their "Daddy, what did you do in the war?" questions and thought that maybe he could answer some of them for him.

"Your Dad didn't get to Viet Nam until almost the end. By '74 it was, for all intents and purposes, a done deal. We lost." He said the last with a sad resolve; his voice barely a whisper and Dean noticed Bobby suddenly looked ten years older than when they'd arrived. They couldn't have known but he'd stopped sleeping for the most part, weeks before; just walked around in the darkness drawn to the fires he built, night after night.

"What was it like over there? Dad never talked about it," Sam asked.

"I don't doubt it. Before they got to Saigon, your Dad's unit was into some heavy shit in Laos and Cambodia, though we were never officially there."

"How about you?" Sam then asked.

"I was in the Nam for three tours, each one shittier than the last," he told them, his first tour setting the tone for the other two, "The country was beautiful, except where we left a heavy footprint, Agent Orange and bomb creators the size of football fields and plenty of dead, U.S. and indigenous, both military and civilian. I saw some awful things, things you'd expect in a war torn country where law and order went by the wayside almost from the get go." Bobby scrubbed his hands across his face, the pictures running through his mind in nightmare-vision, images he'd tried hard to forget over the years. "I also saw things I couldn't explain...until I got back stateside and hooked up with folks like Bill Harvelle and your Dad. It took years but things finally made sense but there was a price to pay for the knowledge. I found out that there was unspeakable evil all over the world and if we were lucky, we could stay one step ahead of it and destroy it."

"You mean you saw things over there like we see here?" Dean asked rolling his empty beer bottle between his hands.

"Sure, why not? You can trace most of our legends back hundreds of years and across thousands of miles which means they probability traveled with our ancestors."

"There were more than just settlers on that first ship to Jamestown," Sam assured him as he sat up and hands shaking, took a sip of beer.

"You think?" Bobby asked smiling fondly at him. Bobby knew there were more than just a few devil's gates in the world and that some of them had been opened at one time or another and with that, the conversation waned and they sat in silence for a few minutes more before Bobby begged off to go to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam lay in Bobby's spare bed, exhaustion marring his boyish face even while he slept, while Dean stood at the window staring out at the night. Bobby had excused himself and said he was hitting the rack but he was back outside again and Dean watched him as he bent down and stirred up the fire, adding more logs to build it back up to where it had been before they'd gone inside. Horrified, Dean continued to watch as Bobby went back to the porch and picked up a red gasoline can. Upending it, he poured the clear liquid over his chest and arms, soaking his clothing.

"Son of a bitch," Dean swore bolting out of the bedroom calling to Sam as he did. He knew Bobby had gone too gently into that good night and should have known he'd try something stupid. Diving off of the porch, he tackling the older hunter and wrestled him to the ground. "I'm not gonna let you do it, man," Dean vowed, "Not on my watch."

"You can't babysit me forever, Dean."

"No, but I can stay until I knock some sense into that hard head of yours."

"Guys," Sam shouted and the two of them stopped grappling.

Dean got up off the ground and held his hand out to Bobby who slapped it away and stood up on his own. Considering a return of his obvious slight, by punching him in the face, Dean held his anger in check and backed off.

"Guys," Sam repeated pointing toward the fire. A specter had appeared, just as Sam thought it eventually would, and the three of them gaped at it. It was nobody Bobby could remember ever having met before, either in Vietnam or here at home.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Dean demanded of the woman dressed in the black pants and flowing white top Sam had described from his vision.

Bobby put his hand on Dean's arm to shut him up while he searched her face but there was no recognition of the person, only of the despair and anger that radiated from her as her head swiveled to look first at Sam, then Dean and finally at Bobby.

"I'm here for you," she said stretching out her hand toward him and Bobby was ready to go to her, eager in fact.

He just wanted the pain to stop and to be able to finally rest and told her, "I'm ready."

"Bobby, we don't even know what she wants," Sam warned but Bobby didn't care.

"I want you to do the honorable thing, say what needs to be said," she explained cryptically, taking a step toward them.

Dean grabbed the shotgun Sam held out to him, aimed it at her to warn her off and shouted, "Screw the honorable thing. Now back off, bitch!"

Bobby ignored Dean's outburst and stepped in front of her and asked, "What do you want me to do?" He was mesmerized by her, the joy of times past wrapping around him even as she pointed to the fire and it grew, leaping higher into the sky.

"In my country it is said that to burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance," she told him, her voice caressing him like a gentle breeze.

"And I've done it," he admitted, yanking up his sleeves to show her the burns that covered both arms, some fresh, others older and crusted over, all of them painful as the gasoline soaked through his shirt and onto his skin.

"Jesus, man," Sam said incredulously looking at the damaged flesh, "What the hell are you doing to yourself?"

"Trying to kill the voices in my head," Bobby said without any real emotion or conviction.

"Bobby, maybe this is post-traumatic stress disorder and not really some lame assed vengeful spirit," Sam tried to convince him.

"Oh yeah, then what's she?" Dean asked pointing to the specter.

"Point taken but…"

"There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with the utmost of courage, frankness, determination and sincerity," the apparition said again, her voice soothing as she pointed to the fire, urging him closer.

Dean stepped between Bobby and the fire, the gas fumes wafting from them both warning him to keep well away from the flames and told him, "This is crazy, Bobby. It's suicide!"

"Back off, Dean," he warned as she spoke again.

"Suicide is the lack of courage to live, to despair of life and loss of hope and desire of non-existence. Do you wish you had never been born?" she asked him and Bobby laughed mirthlessly.

He'd wished he'd never been born plenty of times. If he'd never been born he would never have had to bury family and friends and feel the inconsolable pain of loosing everyone he'd ever loved. He would also have never known or touched the evil that was so ingrained in man or known or touched the pure evil that walked the earth.

"Is that what you wish, Bobby Singer?"

"How do you know my name?"

"I know the names of all sinners."

She had him pegged all right. He had been a sinner most all his adult of life, a thief, a liar and a killer starting with the war in her country and continuing up until now. And he was suddenly sick to death of death.

"The person who burns himself has lost neither courage nor hope, nor does he desire nonexistence. On the contrary, he is very courageous, hopeful and aspiring for something good in the world to renew the communion of the dead."

Her voice was seductive, her words making perfect sense. "What do you want me to say?"

Dean wasn't buying any of it and, grabbing Bobby by the arm, vowed, "It doesn't matter, 'cause I'm gonna knock your ass out before you get the first word out of your mouth."

Bobby glared at him and growled, "You little piss ant! You think you're so tough. When you've seen and done one tenth of what I have and you're still sane, then you can try to knock my ass out."

Before they could come to blows, the specter shouted, "Chet la het no!" and vanished, the stench of sulfur choking the air around them.

Sam and Dean immediately looked around for the demon that was stinking up the place but only Bobby remained standing by the fire, a blank look on his face.

Loosely written and translated:

"Chet la het no." - Death quits all scores.


	5. Chapter 5

The stifling night air was thick with moisture and filled with the chirping of so many crickets that it was almost deafening. Twenty one year old Sergeant First Class Robert Singer sat suspended between two branches of a large conifer tree, his XM-21 tactical rifle with its Starlight scope resting on his lap. On the tail end of his second tour in as many years, he was now one of Alpha Company's thirteen cent killers and he was all set to rock and roll. In the Nam it was said, "We own the day, but Charlie rules the night." During the day, his unit went looking for the enemy but couldn't find them. At night, they came looking for Alpha Company and knew exactly where to find them. The Marines at firebase Angel willingly, even gladly handed the night back to Charlie so they could relax and listen to "Riders on the Storm', get high and await the coming dawn and as always, Bobby Singer would be waiting between his men and Charlie.

Bobby never got high on anything other than the constant rush of adrenaline brought on by shooting and being shot at and he rarely slept more than an hour or two a day and more often than not he forgot to eat, even his favorite, the ham and motherfuckers that came in little green cans that were left over from the Korean War and old than he was. He mainly lived on the little packs of incredibly stale cigarettes that came with the c-rats that his buddies tossed to him. It was kind of like throwing chunks of meat to a lion in the zoo. The cigarettes kept him docile and happy.

His gaunt face and the dark circles under his slightly wild eyes scared most of the soldiers in his company and only the short timers who had gotten to know him over the long haul would have anything to do with him. They knew he was a stone killer who had been in Indian Country far too long but that it was a plus to have him as a friend and a huge negatory to have him as an enemy. Charlie should have been let in on that little bit of info because every night Bobby would dress in subdued camo, religiously and superstitiously refusing to write his medevac number on the seat of his pants since the day he'd seen a soldier searching through a group of K.I.A. looking for a buddy of his. The dead soldiers were pretty well messed up and could only be identified by the numbers written across their asses. The soldier had found his friend, the one he'd lent a pair of his pants to the day before, and after seeing his own id number laid out on the ground before him, spent the rest of the war wondering if the land mine that had killed his friend had really been meant for him.

If Bobby was going to die in the jungle, as he felt he probably would, he didn't want his body identified and sent stateside. He'd rather feed the tigers, some of which had grown incredibly fat on the flesh and bones of the fallen. So with his face painted black, he'd position himself outside the trip wires every night waiting for the first of the satchel carrying gooks to approach. The rifle's suppressor would effectively muffle the sound and hide the muzzle flash so he could pick off enemy sappers all night long and if they came in numbers too many to handle alone, a well placed shot into one of the satchels, carrying the deadly explosives meant for the Marines, would tip them off and they would light up the night sky, the boys on the perimeter slicing and dicing anything caught standing with their 50 cals.

Placing the Starlight to his eye, he scoped the jungle ahead of him and the bulldozed area in front of the firebase. He was 600 yards to the left of the compound and up about eight feet when he first smelled it. The jungle stank to high heaven most of the time with rotting vegetation but as the Marines pushed further north toward Hanoi and west toward Laos, it more often than not smelled of death. Bobby didn't think he'd ever get the smell off of him, not after 36 confirmed kills and just as many unconfirmed when he hadn't gone out with his spotter. But what he smelled now wasn't familiar and it reminded him of home and the sulfur smell of chemistry class.

The rank odor he smelled was nothing compared to the sounds he now heard. It was screaming the likes of which he'd never heard before, not even as horrendous as the screams of the GI's the Viet Cong had been torturing until he and another thirteen cent'er had tracked them down and killed every last one of the motherfuckers before calling for a medical dust off of the wounded. From the sounds of these screams, the rapid-fire shots from the AK-47s and the hysterical Vietnamese pleading, whoever was torturing these guys was evidently a master and on the side of might and right.

The hair stood up on the back of his neck and he signaling the forward ops position to let them know he was on the move. He dropped to the ground heading into the bush and traveled less than a klick when he saw the orange glow of what appeared to be a flamethrower torching dead bodies on the ground while men, still half alive, tried to run or crawl away. When he looked to see if he could spot the good guys in the ring of light from the burning Viet Cong and dense underbrush, he jammed his hand into his mouth and bit down until he drew blood. It was the only way to keep from screaming hysterically and giving away his position as it turned glowing eyes to look in his direction.

As the jungle reached for him, tearing at his uniform, slicing his face as he ran in the opposite direction from which he'd come, he didn't know if he could outrun it or not, but he wouldn't lead whatever it was back to his firebase. Hell, he'd keep running all the way to Laos if he needed to because that night he saw something in the jungle, something he couldn't fathom or explain but it changed what he believed and what he believed in forever.


	6. Chapter 6

Bobby shook his head and looked around while Sam and Dean both stared at him, Sam asking gently, "You back with us, man?"

"How long?" Bobby asked.

"Couple of minutes," Dean replied.

Sweat poured off his body and Bobby began to shake, the same smell of sulfur he'd flashed back on, now ripe in his nostrils and he warned them, "Something's coming and it ain't gonna be pretty."

"What'd she say before she disappeared?" Sam wanted to know.

"Death quits all scores. When I'm dead, we'll be even," he said softly.

As he spoke from out of the dark, where the woman had previously stood, came an abomination of nature, with the horns of a deer, the head of a camel, belly of a crocodile, scales of a fish, the neck of a serpent, claws of an eagle, buffalo-like hair and, oh yeah, the eyes of a demon. It was the same thing Bobby had seen in the jungle years before.

As the three of them stood rooted to the spot, the beast writhed and drew up in height, spitting vaporous fire from its mouth in warning.

"What the hell is that thing?" Dean asked gawking at it as Sam grabbed both him and Bobby pushing them back away from the beast.

"Fire. Gasoline," he reminded them and the three of them put even more space between them and the monster.

As they moved further away it growled menacingly.

"It's a Geni," Bobby said staring up into its face, answering Dean's question.

"I know what a Genie looks like, man," Dean told him, "Its covered in awesome tats not skanky yak hair."

"It's a Vietnamese dragon," Bobby told them, "but I still don't know what it wants, what it wants me to say."

Back to that again, Dean thought astounded at Bobby's continued insistence on doing something amazingly stupid. "I'm guessing it's still a Bobby-que, so tell us how to Aragorn this mother," Dean said feeling their limited firepower would be more of an annoyance to the beast than anything else.

"Wait!" The woman in white had appeared once more and Dean and Sam alternated pointing pistol and shotgun at her, then back to the dragon.

"Thoi dung lam viec ay nua!" she shouted at the dragon, "Bien mat!" and dropping its head in a slight bow, the beast simply disappeared.

Dean couldn't believe his eyes and whispered to Bobby, "What just happened here?"

"She told it to stop picking on me and to go away," Bobby told him, his Vietnamese rusty but still serviceable.

"Sheesh, why didn't we think of that?" Dean wondered.

"My younger sister begs your pardon," the woman said, smiling and bowing her head.

"I take back everything bad thing I ever said about you, Sammy," Dean said realizing the first spirit, evidently this spirit's sister, had morphed into the more sinister and frightening visage.

Bobby stared at the woman his eyes widening. He knew her, knew her voice, her smile. "Ty?" he whispered.

"Cua toi Moi tinh dau," she said, her voice haunting and sad.

"Oh, God," he gasped as the love of his life stood before him as beautiful to him as the day he'd first met her. It was the reunion he'd prayed for when he'd thought she might still be alive but it was a bittersweet reunion now knowing she would leave him yet again and he would help her to go. Too painful for them to be bound to the earth and for him to see her this way, she and her sister had to move on. 

Everything he'd felt; every crazy thing he'd done in the past two weeks, he knew now was because of her. Something had gone wrong all those years ago but he hadn't known it for sure until this moment. He was devastated and she felt his pain and the serenity that had surrounded her shattered and she cried out, "We came back! We looked for you but you didn't come! No one was there to honor us, to pay!"

Sam shook his head and thought, no way was she going to blame Bobby for anything during that terrible time.

"The men who fought for you, for your freedom, you don't think they paid enough?" Sam asked her, his ire rising, "Many paid with their very lives and others, like Bobby, paid with their souls."

She looked at Dean then at Sam, the pained look on her face fading and she smiled, her face again tranquil and beautiful. "Are you his sons?"

Dean looked at Sam then at Bobby and snickered, "Only when we were good. When we were bad, he sent us back to our dad."

"Nevertheless, I can see that he has a great love for the two of you as my sister has for me. Kim came to you because she thought your death would help us. She misses our family terribly."

"Ty, I'm so sorry for what happened. If I could have saved you with my life, I would have. If I can make it okay now with my life, I will."

"Not likely," Dean said, but Bobby and his spirit didn't hear or chose to ignore him.

"You are a good man, Bobby Singer and there was nothing you could have done to save any of us. Horrible things happen in times of war as well as in times of peace." She came closer to him and stretched out her delicate hand to touch his cheek. He closed his eyes, the fragrance of Jasmine in the air.

"Evil twin at twelve o'clock," Dean said raising the shotgun when Ty's sister reappeared.

"You are not a good man! Say what must be said!" she cried out angrily.

"Oh, I'm gonna love salting you, sweetheart," Dean said aiming for her midsection.

"It won't matter, Dean. She'll just keep coming back. We can't salt and burn her bones, so we need to find another way to put her spirit to rest," Sam told him forcing the barrel of the shotgun down with his hand.

Ty turned to Kim and started to command her to leave again but Bobby cleared his throat and called her name softly, "Please, Ty." He didn't want to facilitate any more bad blood between the sisters fearing Kim might gain the upper hand and send Ty away. "Kim, I'll do what you want."

"Get ready for an ass whoopin'" Dean said under his breath so only Bobby could hear him and Bobby gave him a 'you and what army?' look.

Her movements were so fast that no one saw Kim's fingers shoot out and sink through Dean's shirt and cut into the skin on his chest. He cried out in pain and dropped the shotgun.

Ty flew at her sister and both disappeared in a frightening ball of white light.

Dean fell to his knees clutching his chest, his shirt still smoldering where the specter had struck but when Bobby lifted it to check for wounds, his skin was unmarked. He helped Dean to his feet and bent down to grab the shotgun.

"Are they gone?' Dean asked him and added, "That hurt like a mother."

"For the moment," Bobby told them looking at the lightening sky off to the east then suggested, "Let's go inside. Get out of this infernal cold."

He was done in, his head pounded from the gasoline and sulfur fumes and the burns on his arms hurt like hell as he headed for the house.

Sam grabbed Dean's arm and helped him up the stairs but not before giving him a warning shove.

"Were you really gonna hit an old man?" he asked and before Dean could answer, "I heard that," floated through the doorway.

Loosely written and translated:

"Thoi dung lam viec ay nua" - Quit that.

"Bien mat" - Disappear.

"Cua toi moi tinh dau" - My first love.


	7. Chapter 7

"Hold still, you big baby," Dean ordered as the older hunter yelped again when he scrubbed more of the dead skin from his arm. The two of them were in the steamed up bathroom, Bobby sitting on the closed toilet lid still wet from his shower scowling at his nurse. "Didn't this hurt?"

"What do you think, Einstein?" and Bobby yelped again while Dean smiled pleasantly, scrubbing much harder than he needed to. "Where is he anyway?"

"I don't know. He and my car were gone when I got out of the shower. I just hope he brings back food." Dean went back to tending the oozing mess on Bobby's arms, both of them silent, the five hundred pound dragon neither of them wanted to talk about sitting in the room with them.

Finally Bobby spoke and said, "I never met Ty's sister."

"So she just hates you on principle. Good call."

"I guess you could say that," he chuckled and they fell silent again.

Dean finished up and closed up the first aid kit and Bobby wished he could say he felt better but the pain in his arms was worse than before. How crazy does one have to be to want to burn to death? How insane had he been?

"Listen Bobby, I know since I hit puberty and thought I knew way more than you ever could, that I've been a pain in the ass...but these last few months, they've been really tough on me but I've had Sammy to talk to. And I just want you to know that of you want to talk about anything..." Dean knew he was rambling and had to force himself to just shut up.

"Let's save the chick flick moment for some other time, huh?" Bobby said standing up and brushing past him.

"God damn it," Dean said under his breath looking in the bathroom mirror to see if sucker really was tattooed on his forehead. The one time he'd dared to open himself up to the old bastard he'd been bitch slapped and if Sammy hadn't taken off with the Impala, he'd have been out the door and on his way to never laying eyes on Bobby Singer again. After a few minutes, he walked out of the bathroom and, Impala or no Impala, he was fully prepared to go to the spare room, grab his backpack and head out the door.

Bobby stood barring his way, a bottle of twenty five year old scotch whiskey and three glasses in his hand. "I've been saving this for..." he felt uncomfortable but he was determined to finish, to make amends "Hell, I don't know what for. I only knew that I never wanted to drink it alone, maybe with friends." He held out one of the glasses and Dean took it, still wary but willing to drink with the man and they sat down in two camp chairs with an upended wooden crate between them, pulled close to the pot-bellied stove.

Bobby reached over and filled Dean's glass, then his own. The third glass, the one that Dean had believed to be for Sam, Bobby turned over and set bottoms up on a small table. He looked at Dean and raised his glass and said, "A toast, my friend, raise your glass to Absent Companions!"

Dean knew the toast well and knew the third glass had never been for Sammy but for his father and he said, his throat constricted with emotion, "Absent Companions!"

They upended their glasses and drank up. Bobby refilled them and they sat in silence again, Dean waiting patiently until finally Bobby spoke up.

"You know what I remember most about Viet Nam?"

With a half smile on his face, Dean just shook his head knowing Bobby would tell him.

"The fucking heat."

Viet Nam was hot. So mother fuckin' hot that sweat dripped from every pore of his body, soaking his fatigues and actually puddling in his boots. It was 19:00 hours and as soon as the sun came up his uniform would dry up and actually crack like salt covered cardboard...until he started sweating again. The second evening of the three days of celebration of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, was well underway and newly turned 20-year-old, PFC Bobby Singer watched the festive crowd as it ebbed and flowed from side to side up and down the street as people from far and wide returned home to be with family and to visit with friends. Laughter and wishes of "Chuc mung nam moi" could be heard everywhere while little kids laughingly shouted "Song lau tram tuoi" to both young and old, then ran away down the teeming streets. In contrast, the Marines were stationary, solemn and on high alert.

After 1968, Tet wasn't a celebration of the annual awakening of nature to the Marines but a grim reminder of death, swift and sure, coming from out of the darkness as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Regulars attached Saigon and outlying cities. It was now Tet 1970, the year of the metal dog, and Bobby wasn't worried about a repeat of '68 as his regiment had been beefed up two fold and fifteen of his fellow soldiers had been posted along the street in front of the military hospital to aid in crowd control. He'd been in country for a little over eight months on his first tour.

Everyone said he was fuckin' crazy to enlist in the Marines but he'd always wanted to join the military and figured, with the war raging, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, once you got over the shock of every jack mother in country trying to kill you, including the kids, it wasn't a bad place, especially if you were stationed near the military hospital in Da Nang. The hospital was crawling with nurses and Donut Dollies but if you weren't at least a major in the Army or the Corps, you didn't stand a chance with any one of them. The only officers of lower rank who could score with an American woman were the jet jockeys. Bobby was only a Marine grunt but he had managed to meet and shack up with a pretty Vietnamese girl off post in the civilian district. She was also a nurse in the hospital taking care of the sick and injured indigenous and came from a respectable family who had frowned on the arrangement but appreciated the c-rats, the American cigarettes and the US military script he gave them nonetheless.

Ty was the eldest of the two girls in her family and considered an old maid. Her sister had been married and gone from the house for over two years and rarely visited and, while her parents had hoped she'd marry a doctor, she had met an American Marine with a quick wit and an infectious smile and had fallen head over heels in love with him. By the time he'd met her, Bobby had already gone "native' learning the language, even eating Nuok Mam sauce much to the delight of Ty's mother and felt more comfortable celebrating with them than getting drunk with the other Marines in the E.M. club.

Ty Van Nguyen was a good girl and Bobby had been her first. He loved her and if he could get through all the red tape without drowning in it he would marry her and take her stateside, providing he made it through the remaining five months of his tour in one piece. His future bride would be coming by his post shortly, a participant, along with her parents and her younger sister, in the dragon parade. As she went by, he would grab her and pull her into the ally and slip it to her if she would let him, otherwise he'd just kiss her and send her on her way until he could be alone with her in their shabby apartment. He had presents for her, new clothes, a prunus persica branch for getting rid of evil spirits and rice wine in a gourd for a rich and comfortable life.

His smile was ear to ear as the huge head of the red and gold dragon came into view, the people parting like the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments" allowing the dragon to run first to one side of the street, then back across to the other, dipping its massive head from side to side. "Chuc mung nam moi, Chuc mung nam moi" the dragon roared and the onlookers cheered and as the Dragon passed by him, Bobby spotted Ty and her family and then the large red paper fish that had been thrown from somewhere in the crowd. It arched high in the air and fell at the feet of one of the Marines and exploded. Bright red paper flew out in all directions followed by the staccato bursts of firecrackers. Having lived with the locals, Bobby knew that the firecrackers and other explosives were used to drive away evil or dangerous spirits but someone, either one of the FNGs or an overly cautious short timer, assumed they were under attack and opened fired on the crowd. Bobby stood rooted to the spot until he saw Ty vanish under the feet of the wildly dispersing parade attendees as machine gun fire continued unabated with more of the Marines, thinking they too were under attack, joining in the deadly volley. Bobby couldn't reach Ty before the bullets slammed into his back and he went down in an ever-spreading pool of his own blood. Minutes later he was being carried into the hospital, hours later he was on his way to Germany where he languished for a month. He hadn't scored a million dollar wound and the powers that be returned him to the Nam.

Back in Da Nang, he asked everyone he'd ever met about her, but there was no trace of Ty or her family. He finally gave up looking and guessed rightly that they had all been killed the night of the Dragon Parade. But he didn't mourn her passing because he was effectively 'dead' on the inside and when he was reassigned to Alpha Company and sent out into the jungle, he tried his damnedest to become dead on the outside, too.

Loosely written and translated:

"Chuc mung nam moi" - Happy New Year.

"Song lau tram tuoi" - Live up to 100 years: used by children for elders


	8. Chapter 8

Sam opened the door and stuck his head inside. He was ready to pull it back if Dean was waiting to rip it off of his shoulders but the room was dark and quiet. He'd been gone most of the day and part of the evening, almost always out of cell phone range and when he flipped on the light, Dean was nowhere to be seen. He could, however, see Bobby sitting on the couch, his hands between his knees rocking gently to and fro. Looking at him and then at the whiskey bottle on the table, he asked, "You been to sleep yet, Bobby?"

Turning his head, Bobby noticed Sam for the first time. "Nah, got an appointment in a little while," he told him apparently as sober as a judge, "Dean dropped out a couple of hours ago. Went to bed."

"But I'm up now, Sammy," came Dean's angry voice from the bedroom doorway, "Did you wreck my car? Is that why you didn't call? You were afraid of the beat down?"

Sam snorted as he watched Dean stand unsteadily; finally leaning against the door jam for support, his anger apparently spent and told him, "The car is fine. Do you know how far away the closest Little Saigon is?"

"You didn't need to go out of your way to get food, tacos would have done nicely."

Sam held out his empty hands, "I didn't go on a food run for you; I picked up a little something for Bobby. It's out in the car."

But Bobby wasn't listening anymore and he stood as if in a dream and started for the door.

Dean guessed Bobby had fires to make and ghosts to put to rest and warned his brother, "Don't let him go out, Sammy."

His brother looked unperturbed. "It's alright. He'll be fine," Sam assured him heading to the open door to follow Bobby out and in case Dean was too inebriated to remember, added "Don't forget your boots," and grabbing a coat for Bobby, went outside. If he'd thought Dean was too intoxicated to be safe, Sam would have locked him in the closet, but it seemed the dynamic duo had only killed half the bottle of Scotch before crashing.

Sam checked the area around the fire pit as Bobby tossed split pine onto kindling laid in the ashes of last nights fire and stuffed crumpled newspapers between the spaces. He lit the kindling in various spots and stepped back as it caught and flamed up, licking at the larger pieces of wood. He then went and stood next to Sam to watch and wait and, when Dean came up behind them and settled in beside the two of them, he took a deep breath but smelled only pine, no sulfur or jasmine.

The silence stretched between the three of them until Dean couldn't stand it. "And we're here because?"

"It's the final night of Tet," Sam said as if Dean should have known.

"Tet Nguyen Dan," Bobby said softly, shifting his weight from foot to foot as the cold started to seep into his bones.

Bobby had explained Tet to him but the reason they were again standing by the fire in the freezing cold, eluded him and Sam's answer didn't help. The silence descended on them again and Dean was about to ask to be excused when Ty shimmered into view. He he looked around for a weapon.

Sam's hand on his arm calmed him somewhat. "It's Okay, dude," his brother told him and, for whatever reason, Dean knew that it was.

"It is the evening of the third day of Tet," Ty said softly, "It is the year of the dog. We have come full circle, my love." She watched as Sam left the fire and ran for the car.

He returned to stand next to Bobby, a shopping bag in his hand. Reaching in, he brought out a handful of votive money this time made of silver and gold foil.

Bobby looked from the money in Sam's hand to his smiling face and at that moment he couldn't have regretted more that he had never had a son.

Ty saw the offerings, moved closer and reached out to touch Sam's face.

Though she was spectral, he felt her cool caress so different from Dean's searing touch from Kim. "On the evening of the third day of Tet, all ancestral souls who have returned to the family for the occasion must depart for their world," Sam said handing the shiny bundle to Bobby. He reached back into the bag and pulled out more of the money and, shoving some into Dean's hand, continued, "It's then that artificial silver and gold paper money is burned by the family. This allows the departing spirits to hire sampans to transport them across the river that divides "spirit heaven" from the world of the living."

"No one paid the ferryman and they've been stuck here for what, almost forty years?" Dean asked staring down at the worthless paper in his hand.

"That's about it," Bobby told him, "That's why Kim showed up. She thought my repentant death could help them cross over."

Dean was amazed that something so simple, something that should have been done years ago, could help the spirits of Ty and her sister rest easy and he stepped up to the fire and let his money float into the flames while Ty's smile grew even more beautiful. Kim's visage appeared beside her sister and Dean took a giant step back. But she looked serene, content to just watch, as Sam and Bobby let more money float down to be consumed by the flames.

Grabbing the bag, Dean suggested, "Maybe they can hire a yacht," and tossed another handful onto the flames. As the money burned, Ty's mother appeared, as beautiful as her daughters, followed by the spirit of her father.

When the money was gone, the last of the bills turned to ash, the specters became less solid until only Ty remained, tears running down her cheeks. Before she disappeared completely, she said to Bobby, "Tam biet."

"Tam biet. Cua toi moi tinh dau" Bobby answered her softly, "Di tung chang duong ngan," and then she was gone.

Loosely written and translated:

"Tam biet – farewell

"Cua toi moi tinh dau" - My first love.

"Di tung chang duong ngan" - Safe and easy journey.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean lay face down on the sagging couch, mouth open, drooling onto the faded fabric. His hand rested on the floor where, before he'd passed out, he'd written in Bobby's good luck dust, 'I wish my girlfriend was as dirty as this floor'.

Walking by on his way to his desk Bobby laughed softly. Sleep still eluded him but the manic urges were gone and a calming peace had come over him with Ty's crossing over and he would savor it for as long as it lasted. Sam was asleep in the spare room and the only noises in the house were from the occasional pop of wood sap exploding in the stove and the familiar creak of a well used chair when he sat. The noises comforted him as he leaned back, his stomach and his heart full, a painful chapter of his life now closed. It was one of many but every little bit helped.

Dean mumbled something and Bobby looked over at him wondering if his dreams were as disturbing as his own. Bobby thought that Dean and Sam had, in spite of and because of John Winchester, had grown into fine young men but he mourned what they might have been had they been protected from the world's evil instead of thrown, head long into John's hunt to destroy the yellow-eyed demon. But who was to say that bad things wouldn't have happened to them regardless? Sam could have gone on to become an advisor in the Bush Whitehouse and Dean could have been run over by a beer truck. The phone on Bobby's desk rang shrilly and he grabbed it.

"Bobby?" the voice asked tentatively as if she hadn't expected him to answer. It was Ellen and she wondered, "How are you?"

"Okay...now."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Maybe...someday."

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely written and translated:
> 
> "Chet la het no." - Death quits all scores.
> 
> "Thoi dung lam viec ay nua" - Quit that.
> 
> "Bien mat" - Disappear.
> 
> "Chuc mung nam moi" - Happy New Year.
> 
> "Song lau tram tuoi" - Live up to 100 years: used by children for elders.
> 
> "Tam biet - Farewell
> 
> "Cua toi moi tinh dau" - My first love.
> 
> "Di tung chang duong ngan" - Safe and easy journey.
> 
> Some customs of Tet  
> Sweeping during Tet is unlucky since it symbolizes sweeping the luck away.  
> One should sprinkle powdered lime around the house to expel evil.  
> One should return all things borrowed and pay your debt before Tet.  
> One should buy lots of water so money will flow like currents in a stream.
> 
> A huge THANK YOU to the vets of all wars, past and present and especially my BFF in Arlington.
> 
> Thank you for taking time to read this.


End file.
